Chapter 23 Jessie
Jessie
We wake early and hungry. We don’t have anything to eat at the AirBnB so we head out to a diner we saw down the road when we drove in yesterday.
It’s a day like any other. The sky is blue and the air is still.
There are geraniums and daisies blooming in the front gardens of the houses we walk past. It’s all very usual.
It’s all exactly the same as it was yesterday.
The only thing different is that I’m walking funny, and Luke can no longer say he’s never fucked anyone.
We talk as we walk, and it’s not till we’re almost at the diner that I look down and see that we’re holding hands. I hadn’t even realized that I’d taken his hand in mine. It feels normal and right, like it would be crazy to do anything else.
“Jess, I need to tell you something, okay?” says Luke.
His shoulders are back, and his head is held high but there’s a soft whisper of something unfamiliar in his voice.
It gives him away. It takes his words out of the ordinary and gives them a gravity they don’t usually have.
“But before I do, I want to say you don’t have to say it back.
I don’t expect it. I don’t need it. That’s not why I’m saying it.
I’m saying it because it feels like this big, beautiful thing in my life and I want you to know, not because I have any expecta… ”
I grab him and pull him towards me. I kiss him hard, cutting him off mid sentence.
My tongue is in his mouth, searching for his.
Sucking when I find it. I kiss him until I can feel his breath quicken in time with mine and the ground beneath me feels like it's spinning. My heart pounds like a drum. Each beat takes me closer, closer and closer, until I’m helpless to everything but the rhythm of the words that beat in my chest. I start pulling away, but before we’ve parted completely, I whisper, “I love you, too, Blue,” into his mouth.
His whole body tenses and then relaxes.
“You bastard,” he laughs, stepping back, eyes gleaming like sun reflecting on water, “you beat me to it.”
We float through breakfast. I can’t tell you what either of us eat, or how it tastes.
I can tell you that we sit on the same side of the booth though, and our legs touch the whole time we’re there.
He looks at me like he knows a secret. His eyes are wide and shining with joy and his smile is comically big.
It would be very, very funny if I wasn’t totally certain I look just as bad.
When we see the first sign welcoming us to Carmel, Luke runs a gentle hand up my thigh and says, “I think we’re going to have to tell them, Jess.
” I glance over at him, ready to ask why, ready to implore him to reconsider, when I see the answer written all over his face.
You’d have to be dead and buried not to take one look at him and not see the way he’s looking at me.
There’s no way either of us can hide it.
“They’ll be fine. They’ll be happy for us, you’ll see. ”
The conversation is stilted but sweetened by the oatmeal cookies my gran sent for my dad.
“Dad, Rach, there’s something I, um, we, need to tell you.”
“My God, Jess, are you okay? Is it the car? Was there an accident?” asks my dad, color draining from his face.
“No, Dad, it’s nothing like that. I swear. It’s…it’s actually very simple, but also really, really hard to explain…So, the thing is, Luke and I, um, we’re…”
“Aw,” says Rachel, pinching her mouth into a small circle at what a munchkin I am. Wait? What a munchkin I am? What the hell’s going on? Her eyes dance as she gives my dad a few rapid pats on his shoulder, “Brace yourself, Greg, I think the boys are about to drop a big bombshell on us...”
The sound of her laughter rings out and drifts through the room and up the stairs. My dad’s deep chortle joins hers and turns it into a song. It’s a song I’ve never heard before, but it’s a song I don’t definitely don’t hate.
“Wait,” says Luke, clearly as confused as I am, “you guys know?”
“Oh, Lu, neither of you are very good at sneaking around,” says Rachel.
“Honestly, you’d be hard pressed to make it any more obvious, what with all the ducking and diving and secret little smiles.
Plus, we knew you had a little crush on each other way back at the wedding, so it’s hardly a surprise. ”
“B-but how did you know?” wails Luke.
She shakes her head at him sympathetically, “Oh, honey. It’s just that you were using so much product. Your hair actually looked wet half the time Jess was here. It was awful. I did try to talk you out of it, but you weren’t having it.”
I stifle a chuckle. I’m pretty much living for how this conversation is going.
“And you weren’t much better, Jess,” adds my dad. “You were a mess at the wedding. I’ve never seen you show off like that. At one point, you were swinging in the Acacia like a chimp.”
That shuts me right up and sets Luke off instead.
“Have you heard from her today?” asks Luke.
“Nah. Nothing since yesterday.”
Yesterday my mom called me in tears. She said she was having problems with Neil.
She said he wasn’t replying to her messages and he’d cancelled the last two dates they had planned.
I tried to reassure her, but my efforts failed to reach believability, in part because I didn’t believe them myself, and in part because I’ve been through this so many times and I know how it plays out.
Despite the fact I know she’s not perfect, hearing her voice like that made me feel vaguely sick.
It’s an old, familiar feeling. A terrible feeling.
The kind of feeling I used to get when I was in bed at night and I could hear my parents fighting.
When they weren’t yelling, when they were using soft, low voices so I couldn’t hear the words but I could hear the intent; cause maximum damage.
“It’ll be fine, you’ll see. Give him space and he’ll come around,” I said to her.
“It would be a lot easier to deal with this shit if I wasn’t all on my own,” she replied, and then hung up without saying good-bye.
Vaguely sick curdled into full-on nausea.
Since then it’s been radio silence.
It’s a mind fuck, to be honest. Everything is bright and cheery here.
Literally. The weather is perfect. The sky is clear, and summer is seemingly endless and brimming with possibility and new beginnings.
We spend our time chilling at the pool. Gould comes over and some of the time it’s not even that painful.
This afternoon Izzy and Chase decide to grace us with their presence.
They look a little unsteady on their feet, like foals learning to take their first steps.
They squint into the sun when we walk out to the pool.
I get the feeling it’s the first time in a really long time they’ve seen the outdoors.
When they all leave, Luke and I stay outside.
We cram ourselves onto a lounger and fall asleep like that, curled up, limbs knotted together.
Neither of us move a muscle when we hear my dad’s car and God, it feels good.
I lift my head and wave when I see him, then I burrow back down into Luke’s chest. My dad smiles and waves back and comes over to sit with us. We talk for ages about nothing at all.
It’s perfect.
At least it would be if I knew how to ignore the alarm signal that sounds every time I check my phone. It’s a deep, bone chilling feeling of foreboding. Of dread. Of waiting for the other shoe to drop. You’d think no news would be good news, but when it comes to my mom, you’d be wrong.
Dead wrong.
I still haven’t heard from my mom. It’s Sunday today. It was Wednesday the last time we spoke. She’s gone a day or two without talking to me lots of times, it’s kind of her thing, but she’s never taken it this far.
“Maybe things have worked themselves out,” says Luke. “Maybe things with Neil are fine and she’s out having fun.”
He’s totally sincere when he says it. Completely and utterly sincere.
So sincere that when I hear the words and feel his hand on the small of my back, I lean into it.
I let myself believe it. I let the fist that’s been clenched in my chest release.
I take big, long breaths and flood my lungs with fresh air.
It goes straight to my head. It makes me feel dizzy and giddy, and when I move closer to Luke, I find him right there with me, leaning in too.
His hands are on my face, so are his lips, he kisses me lightly all over my face.
Tiny, featherlight kisses that tickle. He does it until I’m laughing and squirming.
“I love you,” he whispers against my cheek. His face is pressed against mine. It’s warm and when he nuzzles to get closer a hint of stubble scours the side of my face. Just like that I can’t tell if I want to climb inside him, or if I want him to climb inside me.
“Boys! Pizza’s here,” calls Rachel from the kitchen window.
“Ugh,” I groan.
Luke whoops and spins round, grabbing my hands and placing them firmly on his sides. He bobs from side to side down the path to the main house. He drags me along. It’s not like I have a choice in the matter. It’s not like I actively participate or anything.
Fine. I say par-tay once.
Jesus. Chill.
You’d have a lapse in judgement too, if you had that ass bouncing around in front of your face.
“Nice one, Jess!” exclaims Rachel, making a beeline for us and joining our conga with worrisome gusto.
The combination of her enthusiasm and Luke’s proves too much for me.
I start laughing uncontrollably. I’m mainly laughing at how ridiculous the whole situation is.
Obviously. It’s just that my brain can’t tell the difference.
Serotonin is serotonin, you know? By the time we get to the media room, the heady smell of pepperoni and melted cheese does nothing but pour gasoline on the mood.
“Admit it!” cries Rachel. “We know how to party, Jessie Lewis.”
“God,” I laugh, “you really are three happy idiots.”
“Oh, we were three happy idiots.” Her eyes burn with mischief. “And now we’re four happy idiots.”
“What’ll it be?” asks my dad, phone in hand, ready to let Siri do her worst.
Something strange and unfamiliar takes me over. I don’t skip a beat. “Slice, slice, baby,” I sing to the tune of Vanilla Ice’s Ice, Ice, Baby.
My dad looks dumbstruck. His mouth gapes open and he actually clutches his chest. Never in history has a parent taken such pride in something so ridiculous.
Though I wouldn’t have thought it possible, my dad and Rachel hit a new level of terrible dance moves.
This time it looks like something distantly, and sordidly, related to a breakdance.
I don’t have time to let the full force of my judgement hit me, because Luke’s dancing too.
He’s expending the type of energy most people would struggle to get through in an entire work week.
He’s moving in a way I suspect would make it dangerous to get too close to him, lest I come within striking distance of a wayward arm or leg.
He watches me the whole time. His eyes are soft and inviting, they say come on, it’s fun or you’re safe here, I can’t tell which.
Either way, I start dancing, and I don’t mean dancing the way I practiced in front of the mirror as a teen to make sure I didn’t humiliate myself at my first school dance.
I mean moving like no one’s watching. I give myself over to the beat.
It flows through my shoulders and hips. It shakes parts of me I didn’t know knew how to shake.
It’s a catchy tune, okay?
And dammit, it is fun
Afterwards, we huddle onto the sofa and eat pizza and watch Maverick. I’ve seen the movie before, but I don’t mind ‘cause I spent most of the time imagining Luke in a pilot’s uniform.
My phone vibrates in my pocket about two thirds of the way in. I check the screen and get to my feet when I see the user ID.
“I have to take this,” I say.
“Do you want us to wait for you?” asks Rach.
“No, no. Keep watching. I’ve seen it before.”